tim.dalton

Actually, I think David is probably right about web tools... This kind of thing is becoming more common- look at Google Docs for example. Maybe you shouldn't be factoring in building your own, but there are plenty of cloud projects around that have the potential to achieve this. Online audio/video editing is starting to appear now- http://aviary.com/tools/myna is a pretty good online audio editor. If we're saying that students will be using their own devices/working from home/using handheld stuff then we have to be planning around web tools so they can work wherever they are. Tim

I think it's going to be really quite good... Haven't had nearly enough time to play with it yet, but from what I've seen/read it seems exciting. Going to try and get an hour this week to play with a few of the bots- links to blog/twitter/etc would be great. The problem for me is that the initial test group is very small- really hard to make a judgement about how we would use it if the majority of people I communicate with on a daily basis aren't on there. But, potential for collaboration is great- really like this as a tool for classroom as well as work stuff. Hopefully they'll dish out some more invites soon, will then attempt to move the team over to do some proper testing. Tim

We used a company called Event Elephant to try this a little while ago. Set up a custom front page for the event, they deal with taking the payments for you (for a percentage of the money you make obviously). It all went pretty well, few issues with people paying more than once & needing to sort out refunds but nothing major & I think user error rather than a fault with the system. Certainly worth a look at. Tim

This is just about my role... The job description currently has me as a consultant, but in Hampshire I think that is mainly about salary bands rather than accurate descriptions of what we do. Not massively interested in what goes on the business card to be honest. I don't think I have much to add following the posts above, I certainly don't have a contribution that useful! But, I thought I'd point out where I think we may differ. I'm line managed by the deputy head, and the best short description of my role at Wildern is overseeing strategic direction in terms of ICT. I'm interested in how our current technology is used in the school, and our future plans. We also have an AST that has responsibility in new technologies (and is very much focused on their impact in the classroom), and between us we look at how the school develops. There is also a head of ICT (curriculum) in post that deals with day to day classroom practice for the subject, and then network manager and the standard tech roles under that. The massive advantage of having a role like this within a school is as you say, you get to look at the bigger picture without having to worry too much about the tech support. Certainly looking at the way the school has moved forward in the time I've been here, having people with time allocated to working at whole school level on development has meant we have not only become more focussed/consistent but I think pushed us forward quicker. Interestingly, I'd say this role would have more requirements in terms of management skills than technical. The caveat here is our work beyond the school. Both Kate (our AST) and I spend a considerable amount of time out doing work with our feeder and partner schools, and this helps provides funding for us to work this way. Obviously work outside makes complete sense as it helps us support the direction of our feeder schools too, but it does also mean that it isn't a position that the school purely funds. Hope this is useful, happy to help with anything else if I can. Tim

Sorry, been offline since this thread started. Just wanted to agree- if you can't ping by name then it won't be able to join. Fix that, pretty sure the AD bind will work ok then. Tim >:-)

This should do it... Every user is easy, although splitting pupils and staff users might be harder using login scripts. Tim

Just took a quick screenshot of our Moodle front page. Happy to show you some more specifics if it would be useful, send me a PM with what you're after. We're updating website/etc over the Summer but this should stay online for a couple of weeks at least. Ta, Tim http://www.wildern.hants.sch.uk/images/vle.png

Hi Tom, We'd be more than happy to spare some time if you'd like. We've been steadily growing the number of Macs on site here for about 6 years now, now at the point where almost half of our IT suites are Mac based, and about half the teaching staff have a Macbook (probably about 250ish in total). In terms of what we teach we try and avoid teaching specifically Apple things, going far more for a cross-platform approach. All of the iMacs dual boot (hopefully triple boot soon...), and IT lessons where possible allow the student to pick whichever OS they want for the task. Obviously media/music tend to be a bit more focused as they really like iLife. We run specific training for staff on the OS itself, as well as sessions around using iMovie/Garageband/etc as twilight training. These tend to be run by a member of teaching staff, and attendance is voluntary. We open these up to staff in local schools too who are interested. Hope this helps, give me a shout if you want a chat with anybody here that would be useful. Cheers, Tim

Another vote for Joomla here... We host internally too now. Tim

Really easy... On the Mac, go Applications-Utilities-Directory Utility, it should see your AD automatically, fill in the details, done! Pretty good Apple PDF on this here if you need more detail, and bombich.com is always a good bet for anything Mac. Tim

Salary will be related to experience/etc, but looking at previous employments at the assistant level we expect to be looking at programmers early in their careers, starting somewhere in the £15-20k range. The positions are for a very new project that we think has a huge amount of promise, so low starting point but good potential. Hope this helps, in short quite a bit of flexibility depending on the candidate. Thanks, Tim

Hello all, This advert is just going out at our place, wanted to post here as I know there are people working in similar areas that might be interested. Do pass on to anybody you know, any questions feel free to email/PM me. Tim Wildern School are looking to expand our development team. The core of your role will be working with the team to research and create new software tools for the staff, pupils and parents. Our long-term goal is to make all aspects of reporting and school management available online, and all of the projects you will be involved with are linked to this aim. A good knowledge of PHP, MySQL, unix scripting, and LDAP are useful qualities, but more important is a willingness and ability to learn. The team is involved in creating new software for use in UK schools, so the ideal candidate must be confident experimenting with new technologies for this purpose. A positive attitude and good communication skills are important, but self-reliance and motivation are vital as you will often be required to problem solve independently. Applications should be on Hampshire County Council forms, individual CV's will not be accepted. Application forms can be downloaded from the links below where you will also find detailed instructions on completing and submitting your application. Applications can be emailed to [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or sent by post for the attention of Mr T. Dalton, ICT Department. Wildern School is committed to safeguarding children. Closing Date: 14th August

Not a bad idea... Only problem would be having 30 shared iTunes libraries would be a bit of a mess. Combine that with the kids leaving sharing switched on after the lesson and we'll end up with a few hundred shared libraries appearing! Like the idea of using iTunes though, I wonder if we could do something clever with getting students to save their exported files to the one teacher shared library. Will have a think. Thanks, Tim

Our music department are Mac based. Got iMacs running Garageband, Logic and Sibelius. The intention was that lower down the school they use Garageband and then progress up to the other apps for GCSE although we're increasingly seeing Garageband being used all the way through. Everything seems stable, our issues are more to do with people wanting to do new things rather than bug fixing. We're currently looking for good ways for students to play back their work through the main speaker system in the IT suite from whichever computer they are working on for example. Quite like the idea of some kind of mixer (maybe even virtual) that sits on the teachers desk with an input for each of the 28 computers in the room. Also starting to play around with broadcasting audio across the network for a radio station- outdoor speakers seems doable, looking at ways to be able to schedule playback of recordings, stream to the desktop, podcasting the content, etc. Tim

Our PHP types here are using 22" Dell monitors in portrait mode. Not 100% sure of the model number (2209 maybe?) but they seem to be well priced & haven't had any complaints. Ta, Tim

This is something we do... We have an extra member of staff to cover the visits, all once a fortnight & they spend the rest of the time working in our school. We look after everything apart from the admin network side (our LA deals with this), basic annual contract covers all the support, we bill in addition for anything extra (installing new kit, imaging, etc). We also offer telephone support/call out, but in general most support requests come via email. Something else to think about is remote access. We're just setting this up between us and all the feeder schools, will make supporting them a whole lot easier. Anything else do ask, happy to share what we're doing. Thanks, Tim

Just to add to this... We were one of the schools on the pilot for this & would be happy to talk to anybody thinking about using it. Short version- easy to use, works very well, parents seem to like it. Cheers, Tim

We're very seriously considering it at the moment. We've got a very limited webmail client our LA provides & the move to Google looks appealing, particularly if we get the calendars/chat/video up and running too. At the moment I think it'll be on the dev plan for the year providing we can come up with a slick way to migrate. Tim

We do allow other devices onto the wireless (although don't massively publicise the fact). It is all nicely locked down to require the student username/password for access & we log all activity too. Seeing a gradual increase in the number of things connected, probably far more iPods and things than laptops at the moment. Tim

Thanks for this, looks good... Just been debating whether we should buy a Stirling Engine or something exciting like that. Tim

2nd vote for Apple Remote Desktop here. Good tool for admin as well as classroom management Apple - Remote Desktop 3 Tim

We've been playing with EventList on our Joomla this term. Seemed fine for getting staff booked on to training sessions but we haven't really used it for anything else yet. Cheers, Tim

Might be worth putting the whole Final Cut directory into the allowed apps in Workgroup Manager. We certainly had a similar problem with Garageband at a school & moving the whole directory into the list cured it. Problem might just be with doing it over the network though. Little bit beyond things I know about but if Final Cut is trying to use network drives for scratch discs/etc it might be causing problems. We only do small amounts of work with Final Cut here but all with local accounts so haven't tried it I'm afraid. Tim >:-)

Thought I'd add a contribution here. We've got a pretty large scale Moodle site up and running- 1800 students, 200 staff that's heavily used. Has been in place for about 5 years now, took about a year to get it well populated but still plenty of work to do in order to get it used to it's full capability. We don't employ anybody specifically to do VLE work but make all of the creation of content/managing of pages the job of the teaching staff. There are various responsibilities within middle-management/SLT to ensure this happens, and we performance manage all staff related to ICT as well. Happy to help/show you some of what we're up to if it's useful, Cheers, Tim

No useful to suggestion as to why it's doing it I'm afraid... What I'd do is reimage it, install the OS from scratch, software update as far as it'll go and see if the problem is still there. At least that way you'll know whether it's a hardware or software problem. Ta, Tim